Heh. Mine was a little different. TPM came out when I was 12. My parents didn't care for ESB or ROTJ, so I'd only seen them sparingly, since I wasn't a lucky kid with his own TV, so if they parents didn't want to see them, I had no control over the situation, so as a kid, I didn't get to see ESB or ROTJ much!

So I was unfamiliar with the Emperor's surname. All I remembered of him was his title of "Emperor." So when it came to TPM, I recognized Darth Sideous as the eventual Emperor.... but not that Palpatine was Sideous. Had I been familiar with the character's name of "Palpatine" from ROTJ, I would have made the connection right away, but I was just unobservant enough to be fooled by a cloak over the top half of his face and a voice change!